While problems related to environment, energy or the like are exposed, an electric vehicle having a low environmental load, and good energy efficiency is attracting a lot of attention. As one type of such an electric vehicle, there is an electric vehicle equipped with a secondary battery such as a nickel hydride battery or a lithium-ion battery and powered by an electrical energy stored in the secondary battery.
In such an electrical vehicle equipped with the secondary battery, it is necessary to charge the secondary battery. For charging the secondary battery, the secondary battery is connected to a charger which generates voltage and current suitable for charge based on an electric power supplied from a commercial power source or the like, and controls charging time and the like. By providing a secondary battery-side connector connected to the secondary battery on an electric vehicle main body, and by providing a charging connector to be connected to the secondary battery-side connector on the charger, a connection between the secondary battery and the charger becomes easy. Thereby, a user of the electric vehicle can easily charge the second battery.
However, due to characteristics of the second battery, a long time is needed for charging the second battery. Therefore, the user may leave a charging place, and there is a fear that a vicious person may pull out the charging connector from the secondary battery-side connector. A suggestion for solving such a problem is described in Patent Document 1.
As shown in FIGS. 10 and 11, a charging connector 720 suggested in the Patent Document 1 includes: a rectangular frame-shaped grip 721; a connector main body 722 having a cylindrical inner case 723; and a charging cable 720a extracted from a lower part of the grip 721, and connected to a not-shown charger. A cylindrical sleeve 726 shorter than the inner case 723 is attached to an outer circumference of the inner case 723 of the connector main body 722 in a manner that the sleeve 726 is immovable in an axial direction of the inner case 723, and rotatable around the inner case 723. When the connector main body 722 is inserted into a vehicle-side connector 710 as the secondary battery-side connector, the sleeve 726 is positioned at an outside of a cylindrical guiding tube 711 mounted on the vehicle side-connector 710. Further, an engaging pin 727 is projected inward on an inner circumference at a tip end of the sleeve 726, and engageable with a spiral groove 714 formed on the guiding tube 711. When the engaging pin 727 and the spiral groove 714 are engaged with each other, the connector main body 722 and the vehicle side-connector 710 are connected to each other.
Further, the charging connector 720 includes: a lock system 730 as a cylinder lock which can be locked and unlocked by an ignition key of an electric vehicle; and a locking rod 732 to be inserted into a locking notch 734 formed on the sleeve 726 in response to locking and unlocking of the lock system 730. When the locking rod 732 is inserted into the locking notch 734, the locking rod 732 prevents the sleeve 726 from rotating, and when the locking notch 734 is removed from the locking notch 734, the locking rod 732 allows the sleeve 726 to rotate. Namely, a locking mechanism is composed of the lock system 730, the locking rod 732, and the locking notch 734. Further, when the lock system 730 is locked while the engaging pin 727 and the spiral groove 714 are engaged with each other, the locking rod 732 is inserted into the locking notch 734 to prevent the sleeve 726 from rotating, so that the connector main body 722 and the vehicle side-connector 710 are held in a state that the connector main body 722 and the vehicle side-connector 710 are connected to each other, namely, in a locking state, thereby the charging connector 720 is prevented from being removed from the vehicle side-connector 710.
Patent Document 1: JP, A, H06-310207